Learning

We seek to be a diverse, faithful community in which a person finds support and nurture for spiritual, emotional, and intellectual growth.

Faith Formation for Youth and Adults

Christian Education for youth and adults meets from 11:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. on Sundays after worship during the months of September through May.

Childcare is available for infants and toddlers.

Our Whole Lives (OWL)

The Our Whole Lives (OWL) program is integrated into the Christian Education program. This program is a comprehensive, healthy sexuality curriculum. It provides youth with age-appropriate, accurate information on sexual health, human development, sexual behavior, relationships, and communication skills, within the supportive setting of their faith community.

The 4^th-6^t^h grade program is scheduled for eight weeks whenever we have a cohort of youths in this age group. The 7^th-9^th grade class meets every Sunday during the academic year when we have a cohort of youths for this group. For more information about the content of these programs, please click here to view the OWL brochure (PDF).

Because this program was developed by a collaboration of the national offices of the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Church, we sometimes partner locally with the Unitarian Fellowship to offer this program to the children and young adults of both congregations.

Our children are a tight-knit group who enjoy coming to church and attending Christian Education. Many of the younger children view the older youths as their older siblings.

They genuinely care about and take care of each other.

Youth Christian Education

At the New Ark, we have Christian Education classes for children and youth each year depending on the age clustering.

The elementary age students have lessons from a curriculum selected by the teachers. We have a number of units including “Jesus in the Temple,” “Digging into the Bible,” “Lost and Found,” and “Peer Pressure.” A pool of teachers chooses lessons according to their own interests/abilities and may use stories, videos, games, music, cooking, science, etc.

Program for Adults (Faith Formation)

All Faith Formation offerings for adults are designed to assist congregants in their personal faith journey. A general balance is sought among three types of programming:

Biblical and/or Theological Studies
Social Justice Issues
Personal and/or Community Growth